Month: October 2022

Where Do I Start?

Published on by Grace15 Comments

I need a new phone or a new small camera. My Powershot is shot – it is minimally 10 years old and it won’t even turn on. I bought a new battery – no deal. I have an iPhone XR and the camera on this is nothing to write home about. I do have a big Nikon but I’m paranoid about wandering around the neighborhood with it.

Crap photo from today’s walk…

I did walk in a different direction today hoping to find some of the cool Halloween decorations and this neighborhood has disappointed me again. This is the best they can come up with.  This neighborhood has done better in years past. I dug up this little movie from my files – 2017 – (sound on – cute song).

Now then, the walking part. I’ve known for a long time that running/jogging on concrete is detrimental to your health but the older and feebler I get I realize walking on concrete is no joy either. I walk around the apartment, the building, the supermarket – no problems, no pain. No huffing and puffing.  Hell, sometimes I even skip and run in the supermarket with no ill effects. But man, walking around the block slays me.

Now for some Shitz and Giggles –

Some coward aka Anonymous posted a snarky comment on yesterday’s post. I don’t mind the comment, as snark goes it’s not much. According to the IP address it came from Charter Communications ➜ Spectrum ➜ USA ➜ Missouri ➜ St. Louis.

Now if you want to comment you have to put in your name and email. If that’s a problem for anyone let me know.  If you’re a friend then you have my email address. If you’re a stranger, I guess you can comply or stay a stranger.

Also too – I had a widget in the footer that connected to my IG account. Someone clicked through on that. Which is nice (I guess) but I have removed it. It was dumb. If you do noodle around IG and want to find me, I’m @justtawkin. (I’m so creative with the names.)

I think that’s it for me today. No walking tomorrow it’s gonna rain (for a change). Oh wait, one more thing about the walking stuff. I bought a pedometer and today I walked for 17 minutes, 0.81 miles, 1996 steps (give or take since I didn’t program in my exact stride).  I don’t know if that’s good or bad for a crippled old woman but statistics are fun!

It’s a sunny 72…

Published on by Grace13 Comments

The weather has been really beautiful so I’ve been trying to go outside for a walk – so boring. So very, very boring.

I tried listening to music but that only distracted me and I almost did a couple of whoopsies.  The sidewalks, where there are sidewalks, are not in the best of conditions. And neither am I.  Bad back, back knees, bad heart – just sucks whatever pleasure one might get out of a stroll.

I was going to go off in another direction today because I know there are some houses that go bonkers with the Halloween decorations but those blocks have no place to rest so I did the same circuit as usual and this was the best I could find – I’m thinking these people, both on the same block, got a volume discount –

 

I used to write good…

Published on by Grace11 Comments

I had reason to look back through some old blog posts yesterday and I impressed myself with the quality, and more importantly, the content of past essays. I will always love THIS ONE.

And here’s one from 2009 that I think I need to read every day to remind myself – “Still so much to learn, still surprises, still hopes and dreams and plans…still a lot of life to write…I am still evolving, not young but not finished, standing on a solid foundation of experience, yesterdays are stepping stones to tomorrow which is still Unwritten…”

AND THIS …when did I stop being wise? And thoughtful? “Carpe Diem, indeed. I’m not talking about big things, I’m talking about the small pleasures we deny ourselves every day – sometimes the big picture is too big for the modest size of our dreams and our real lives. It’s not just that gift card that comes with an expiration date, so does today.” Also this from the same essay – “If you can’t bring yourself to seize the day, then at least seize the moment.”

Damn but 2009 was a good year for writing – and thinking and being wise – a quote from THIS POST… “There are places in the past I like to visit. There are places in the future I like to inhabit in my imagination but when all is said and done NOW is what I have at hand. This day, this hour, this moment. And NOW is where I experience all there is – because now IS all there is.”

Coming up in 10 days, my birthday. I think I need to go back and read what I wrote and believed and still do and take my own advice.

Where did I go? What stopped me in my tracks? I’ve never stopped dreaming and plotting and planning but somehow now it’s not so – urgent? Plausible? Has reality really beaten me down this far?  Have I given up? (Me? Never!)

To quote myself – “Still a lot of life to write“

There’s a poem in there and other stuff

Published on by Grace10 Comments

If you have food delivered is it called ‘take-out’? I ordered lunch from Paisano’s today. Rizwan is the fellow who usually delivers our food from there. When I opened the door and greeted him he said, in a very concerned voice “How are you? It’s been a while.”  He then waved to my husband, who could be seen through the open door, and said “Hello, Sir.”  I inquired after Rizwan’s well-being,  wished him a safe day and then wondered…

When my husband calls Brick’s for pizza the conversation is short –

Husband: I’d like to order a pizza for delivery…
Brick’s: The usual?
Husband: Yes, I’ll pay cash
Brick’s: *click*

It’s not a matter of predictability (see THIS POST) but to me, for me, it is a matter of staying too long at the fair.

I recently mentioned to someone, somewhere, that I’ve lived in this place too long and that I was so over it. And I am.

I’ve had this yearning lately to go back to the city – any city. Back to concrete and carbon monoxide.  Back to crowds and noise – both of which give me anxiety attacks but also – Energy! I thrive on that energy.

Everywhere you look people go on and on about ‘nature’ which usually means living somewhere that is boonie-like, surrounded by growing things – green growing things, trees, flowers, whatever.

As much as I need to look out my window and see trees (something I learned the hard way when we lived in Filthadelphia) I don’t need to be surrounded by them. I don’t garden. I don’t have plants in my house. I just don’t care about such. Outdoor space? Yes, a patio, a balcony.  Some plants or shrubs in pots – sure. I like birds so maybe a birdfeeder? That’s enough for me. That’s all I want or need.

I need to do magic again but I need energy for that. Energy I don’t have because I’m not around energy. It’s not just that I hardly leave the apartment, it’s that even if I did there’s nothing but silence. And lawns and grass and trees and occasionally someone walking their dog. There’s places with no sidewalks and this isn’t even considered suburbia.

I love silence but mostly especially when contrasted to sound – sounds of the city. Sounds of people living, being, doing.

Silence is the way you process all the noise. Aloneness is the way you process all the people.

I can’t be all just one thing or another. I need both, I need it all. I want it all. I had it all and then I didn’t.

There’s a poem, or two, hiding in all of that but also there is a poem already written that talks about silence –

Morning Silence

The first hour:

The click-snick of the turn of the locks;
The involuntary oof when bending to retrieve the paper.
Click on the coffee pot; soft burble as it drips and drops into the pot.

Plink of pee; gurgle of flush.

Crinkle of newspaper pages turned,
Crinkle of breakfast biscuit wrapper, opened, then crumpled.
Sneezes, coughs.

Husband whispers “Hi”,
I reply with a finger waggle.
Beep of the microwave; crinkle of
husband’s breakfast burrito wrapper.

Snores and snorts as husband’s morning naps commences.

The second hour:

Husband whispers “Hi”
I grunt.
Husband whispers “How are you?”
I grunt again.

Shower sounds; clack of metal belt buckle against the metal clothes tree.

Newspaper rustling.

The third hour:

Thunky thunky of desk chair rolling.
Clickity clack of keyboard as I type this.

The fourth hour?

Not there yet. But more clickity clack.
Silence in here and out there.
All quiet but not peaceful.

© Grace St. Clair
April 30, 2022

December in October

Published on by Grace12 Comments

We’re in our 5th day of rain and December temperatures. At 3pm it’s 54º – that’s the average temperature here in December.  October temperatures are supposed to average around 70º – so brrr!

Staring out the window I thought – Christmas. But the light is wrong. It’s not December light.  I’m very aware of how the light changes from month to month, season to season – how about you?

I actually wrote a poem about the changing of the light –

Nov 26, 2013

Light

I sit at the dining room table with the lights off.
Staring out the window, the November light is Decemberish.
And then I remember that December is only 4 days away.

It is a sort of rainy, sort of cold day.
It is sort of an uneasy day.

It is 2 o’clock in the afternoon as
I sit at the dining room table
with the lights off – it feels so much later.

But even tho the November light seems
like December, the day does not.
I think December does not feel so unsettled.
But I don’t remember.

I can feel light, I experience light, its weight and substance.
I can smell light and sometimes I think I can hold light.
Light talks to me and tells me stories.

Today the light tells me a story of December
Of darker days and longer nights
Until the subtle shift. December light whispers
Soon…

Why can’t I remember how December light feels?

We’ve been living here 10 years now and I am so over this place but not the view from my windows…